Windows 7 - MSI GTX 560 Ti artifacting ONLY in WoW

Title says it all. MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 560 Ti is displaying artifacts in WoW. NO OTHER GAME.

Minecraft plays fine at max settings
Call of Duty: Black Ops plays fine at max settings
Mirror's Edge plays fine at max settings

The card is neither overheating nor artifacting anywhere else. It does this whether overclocked or not.

I've tried:

clean uninstall and install of drivers (various versions, currently using 270.61)
re-seated the card in its current slot
moved the card to a different PCI-E slot
tried different 6-pin PCI-E power connectors
removing dust
changing power settings
resetting back to factory clock frequencies.
changing the display from the HDMI input to DVI input

any other suggestions?

WoW now uses dx11 components... do any of the other games you play use DX11?

Here see if it runs this smoothly.
Heaven DX11 Benchmark | Unigine - advanced real-time 3D engine (for games and virtual reality systems)

It's the only thing I know of that properly stresses dx11 cards.
The actual deal here could simply be that none of the other games you are playing are pushing the card at all.

Artifacts can be a sign of a unstable OC.

You are still seeing them even at default clocks though, correct?


And when you say Artifacts, exactly what are you seeing? A screenie would be helpful if possible.
May also be a conflict betwern the game itself and a enabled feature such as AA.


As far as your drivers go, I personally have found 260.71 to be quite stable, and still using them myself. I don't think they would be causing the issue TBH.

It wouldn't hurt to try the newest drivers to see if they help & certainly worth a try.
Personally I found 275.33 drivers to be a bit buggy, but not everyone will. Theres actually a newer set out now too to try.



Beyond that, the only thing I can suggest is to test the card and see if any artifacts show up during a full load test.
Something like Evgas OC Scanner for example, although others may have a better suggestion.

If the stress test comes out good, and artifact free, I would guess it has something to do with that particular game.

Yes, I am seeing them at stock clocks and OC clock frequencies. The first thing I did was revert to stock. Artifacts meaning choppy lines when rendering should be smooth. Jagged edges, lack of color in spots. Nothing has froze or crashed on me yet, so it can't be too serious.

Magus, I will try out your suggestion.

Maybe Im misuderstanding you,and apologies if so.
But what you are describing sounds to me like Image Alaising and Image Tearing, not really artifacts. Artifacts are typically colored blocks everywhere.


Have you tried Vsync and AA?

Alaising can be fixed by enabling Anti-Alaising in game, or through the Control panel. This should smooth the jagged edges.

Image Tearing can be resolved by enabling Vsync. This happens when the card is drawing far more frames per second than the monitor can display.
Are you seeing these lines as you turn?



If these are things you've tried, have you yet tried to run the game in DX9 mode to see if its any better?

As of now I made an application profile for WoW with:

Power management: Prefer max performance
16x Anistropic filtering
Gamma correction on
AA - Enhance application setting
AA - 32x (max)
AA - Multisample

The problems I tried to describe went away, without having to use vsync.

Will reply if any other problems arise.

How did you benchamark test turnout that Maguscreed suggested?

If all was OK, without any problems, chances are the card itself is fine.

With that heavy of AA being applied, its possible the FPS dropped to right at or below your monitors refresh rate.
In which case, tearing (if there was any) should disapear as well. So Vsync may not be needed.


Let us know

The benchmark was fine, some jagged edges here and there but no crashes or anything.

And yeah, my FPS is now a solid 60-80 instead of 250, but I'll take that over bad graphics =)

Despite what some hardcore gamers say to the contrary science still only suggest the human eye will see no difference between anything around 30+ frames.
280 is completely meaningless anyhow it's so high over your display rate (unless you're using a plasma) you're not even seeing more than half of them.

I notice a PERFORMANCE difference between 30 and 60.

In FPS, 60-100 I notice a difference, 100+ I don't.

In MMORPGs, 60+ I notice no difference.